


The Parallax Effect

by Miriam_Heddy



Series: The Parallax Effect [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:51:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4619160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miriam_Heddy/pseuds/Miriam_Heddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike's desire for a photograph spurs some rather fraught conversations about love, lust, mortality and ancient history (though in this part, you'll just find some fairly uncomplicated sex-talk as Spike discovers that he and Xander share a fantasy.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Parallax Effect

**Author's Note:**

> While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.  
> ~Dorothea Lange
> 
> I don't have a photograph. I'd give you my footprints, but they're upstairs in my socks.  
> ~Groucho Marx

They had no photographs.

Spike wouldn't have given it a thought but then Red said, "Oooh. I almost forgot. Look what I got!" and she pulled something small and silver from her bag, holding it up in front of Harris and the Slayer--both of them on the sofa--saying, "Cheese!"

Buffy spun around and said, "Where?" and Red laughed as if that meant something more than the usual command to put on a fake smile for the camera. Spike didn't get it, but he didn't care enough to ask.

Spike noticed Harris flinch as the flash went off, though Harris smiled and leaned back into the sofa, his arms spread wide over the back of it. The Slayer nestled against his side, legs curled under her, like she was Harris' girl. Spike watched from across the room, seeing he wasn't asked to join them. It was a small slight--one even Harris didn't seem to notice.

After Red took a few snaps of her friends, she turned the camera around to show them the small screen, saying, "Handsome. Oh, and beautiful!" From where he was standing, Spike couldn't see the photos, but he noticed Harris laugh off the compliment, flushing slightly and ducking his head in that way he had. The Slayer took the compliment as her due.

Red was putting the camera away when it started playing, "That old, black magic." He listened in as she picked up the call, but it was just her mum talking about some book or other her father wanted for his birthday. No blackmail material there, so he turned back to Harris, who was listening to the Slayer go on about her latest date that had gone horribly wrong (through no fault of her own, and she had no idea why such things kept happening to her--cue bloody string section.)

Spike snorted when she got to a bit about how her date had spilled his gin and tonic down the front of her silk shirt, soaking through her bra--accidentally, Spike was sure. He said nothing, not wanting to get Harris' feathers ruffled, though it was fun taking the piss, and Buffy gave as good as she got. Still, Harris had warned him on the way over that he wanted "a calm, no fighting kind of night, unless it was fighting evil, in which case count me in." He'd added that he was hoping to get home in time for some "good, old fashioned nookie," which meant no broken bones, bruised ribs, or the like. And Spike had agreed, preferring Harris come home intact and uninjured, though he was personally in the mood for a good, clean fight--or even a bad, dirty fight. The Soul sometimes gave him trouble for it, but the demon craved death and destruction, chaos and tortured screams. Actually, sod that. The Soul wanted a bit of rough and tumble as well. Demon or not, he was a man, after all, and a man had needs.

Harris had asked him once if he had an angel on his shoulder and a devil on the other one, and Spike had objected strenuously to that image, pointing out that if Angel ever climbed on his shoulder, he'd tip him right off. And Harris had laughed and said, "No, really, I want to know what it's like. I mean, I guess I know what it's like to be good and have bad ideas, but..." And then Harris had left off, either because he realized his own bad ideas couldn't compare to Spike's or perhaps because they could. Harris had an imagination, and a darkness to him that Spike had grown to appreciate over the years. He'd missed it, at first, as, early on, it was muted by Harris' do-gooder impulses. But of all the Scoobies, Harris best seemed to understand that the conflict in him sometimes left him restless and that that restlessness needed an outlet. Without that outlet, he began taking his own troubles out on _Harris_ , who was also a man and therefore prone to his own share of what Red referred to as "pointless posturing and testosterone poisoning." And there was enough shouting between them without bringing the demon into it.

On the way over to the Slayer's flat, he'd felt another shouting match coming on. Harris seemed especially edgy over the prospect of real danger, and Spike would've left Harris to attend the meeting alone, but they were both already committed to attending the Scooby Reunion meeting. They were like an aging band that kept on having "one last tour for old time's sake"--or like a divorced couple that kept tumbling into bed with one another.

Rupert had actually thought he might have something useful to contribute this time, though the Apocalypse, as Red had described it over the phone, had sounded to him like more of a minor disturbance in the Force than a full-on crisis.

All Red had was the sketchiest of details got second-hand from a seer in Bath who couldn't be arsed to join them. If there were any on the telly, he'd be home and letting Harris fill him in later, but Harris had given him the big-eyed routine and Spike had allowed for the possibility that the seer was right and there'd be something worthy of a good fight--something to draw out the demon and funnel those urges more productively than fighting with Harris over whether or not Spike had "accidentally-on-purpose" erased Harris' Tivo settings.

Seeing Harris was still occupied hearing about Buffy's oh-so-interesting date, Spike walked over to the wall by the fireplace and examined the photos hanging above the mantle, ignoring the demon's urge to pick up the frames and smash them on the floor, spreading glass everywhere. He could well imagine Buffy's face going red, and her high pitched, "What the hell, Spike!" and he let the fantasy of vandalizing her well-appointed flat spin out in his head. First he'd do the frames, then the wall. He'd noticed a large marker beside a pad of paper near the door coming in. "Fluffy the Vampire Slayer" would look good right across the spot where the photos had been. Then onto the sofa--tipping it over and knocking the Slayer off of it and onto her arse so he could rip the stuffing out with his bare hands, spreading it around the room.

The idea was a pleasant distraction for as long as it lasted--until the image of Harris, sprawled out on the floor (having been tipped off the sofa along with the Slayer), glared disapprovingly at him, joining in the chorus of, "What the hell, Spike!" and Spike suddenly felt ashamed of the impulse, then angry at the shame, then furious at Harris for making him feel guilty about something he was only _thinking_ about. He wasn't actually going to do it. It was, like most of his life nowadays, all in his head. All talk and no action, that was him--and not even much talk, as anything he said got scrutinized by Harris and held to a near-impossible standard of white hatness that meant he was always coming up short, which left him coming perilously close to brooding.

He went back to the photos on the wall, reaching out and tracing over Harris' image in each one. All three photographs featured Harris as Spike had first seen him--long face, jug ears, big eyes (two of them). In all of the photos, Harris was hiding beneath several layers of oversized, overbright clothing.

The photo on the left had been taken outside the high school. It was clear that, at that time, Red had a thing for Harris. The camera had caught her gazing up at him with her lips parted slightly, likely thinking wicked thoughts, though Harris didn't reciprocate her lusty look. His body language spoke only of an easy, brotherly affection. Spike wondered if Harris'd been too caught up in worshiping the Slayer to see the desire in those green eyes, or if he'd been ignoring what he saw there in order to preserve the fragile peace between them.

That peace hadn't lasted long. Misery did love company, and they were a miserable lot even before he got there to add to the general havoc of their lives. Their adolescent fumblings had been a welcome distraction from Spike's own pining over Dru. Harris had said once that it must've been a part of the Hellmouth curse--the way they'd all had their wires crossed.

To Spike's way of thinking, their Midsummer Nightmare had been a blessing. Had he noticed at the time that Harris was anything _more_ than another pitiful teenaged tosser, it would've been a disaster on all sides. Harris couldn't have handled his attentions precisely _because_ he was a pitiful teenaged tosser, and, hard as Harris' head seemed to be, he would've soon landed in hospital with a brain-injury from Spike's trying to knock some sense into him.

In the best and largest photo on the wall (nicely framed in a style he recognized as having come from Harris' hands), they were in front of the Summers house. Spike could see that Joyce had taken the photo. He could make out her shadow falling across the grass in front of the house. Harris was again flanked on both sides by Red and the Slayer, his arms draped over their shoulders, their arms around his still-slim waist. The Slayer had her hand on his middle, rucking up his t-shirt slightly, showing just a small strip of bare skin.

Spike looked over at them now sitting on the sofa so close together, as close they were in the photograph. He wondered if Buffy noticed she still touched Harris that way--intimately, possessively, and sure of herself, hand now resting on his bent knee, rubbing the top of his thigh as they talked.

Anyone with an eye could see the way Harris had been looking at her in that photo--soft-eyed adoration, with a faint flush to his cheeks that clearly came from her proximity and touch. Harris was basking in it.

Spike considered Harris now, seeing none of that same heat for the Slayer--no response to her touch beyond a fond warmth as he listened to her yammer on about how unfair it was that, between demons and bad dates, she had to keep buying new things. Harris pointed out that she ought to just go slaying and/or dating in the buff, which earned him a light slap from the Slayer that led to a "remember when" discussion about the time some vampire tore her shirt off and then took off with the small scrap of fabric, making her chase him down for a good fifteen minutes of keep-away.

"Yeah, and then you staked him while he was holding the shirt and pphht," Harris said, sounding gleeful.

"Dusted," Buffy said, nodding. "I miss that shirt. It had good buttons. A good button is hard to find, y'know."

"I've heard that," Harris said.

Red finished her phone call just then and joined the two of them in reminiscing by volunteering a story of the time when Harris got pantsed by a Grintnor demon while on patrol. "It was so funny--I mean, not that pantsing is ever a good thing, but really, you should've seen his face. I think he took lessons from Larry."

"Hey--no fair sharing my humiliating story," Harris objected. "Get your own." And then his face brightened as he apparently remembered something worthy.

"Oh no," Red said.

"Oh yes," Harris said, and proceeded to recount the story of the time Red tried out a spell that left her standing in the middle of the cemetery in nothing but her panties and a blush.

"I had a bra on," Willow argued.

Harris just smirked, and crossed his arms over his chest, imitating her.

And back and forth they went--trading tales of naked heroics against mean, nasty types like himself, all the while flirting with each other the way friends do when they were all absolutely sure nothing would come of it.

Buffy suddenly fell over while laughing, landing with her head pillowed on Harris' lap. And Harris stroked a hand through her hair, brushing it back behind her ears as she smiled up at him.

She was damned lucky Spike knew what was what.

Just a few night's earlier, Harris had come home from drinking with a few of his mortal, male friends (none as close as were Red and Buffy, but they offered Harris something Spike couldn't--ordinary companionship without the romance that complicated their own relationship). Still smelling of beer and whiskey and his own sweat from flailing around on the dance floor, Harris had put his head on the pillow beside Spike, staring blearily at the ceiling in the darkened room, and Spike had curled up against him on the bed. Harris had on his t-shirt and boxers, and Spike was naked, as usual, and wondering how close Harris was to passing out. He had an itch, but Harris had just sighed heavily and then suddenly whispered, "What was it like? With her?" his voice a little lower than usual and a bit rough and ragged.

And even though he knew right off what Harris meant, Spike had still asked, " _Her?_ "

"Buffy."

"What about it?" Spike had pressed, wanting to know if Harris really wanted to hear it.

"When you... what was it like when you..."

"When I what?"

If Harris couldn't say it, he wasn't ready to hear it.

"Nevermind," Harris said with a heavy sigh.

But Spike waited, expecting he'd persist. They'd all three been out hunting on the weekend, and Spike had caught the back and forth looks Harris had given him and the Slayer--curious, considering looks, full of heat and, interestingly, no jealousy at all--not that there was a reason for any. And Spike had noticed how keen Harris had been when they'd gotten home from patrolling--how the sex had been a bit more intense than usual--a bit more fraught.

After another few moments of silence, Spike would've thought Harris asleep if he didn't know the different rhythms of his breathing and recognize that this was just resting--the deep, even breath sounds that came from drinking too much and being on the edge of sleep, mixed in with--yeah--some arousal.

"WhatwassexlikewithBuffy?" The words came out in one breath, Harris' voice barely above a whisper. He cleared his throat after saying it and snuck a glance Spike's way, but Spike made a point of keeping his eyes on the ceiling and his face as impassive as he could make it while thinking quickly about what the right answer might be to that question.

He took a moment to inhale an unneeded breath, scenting Harris on the air--and yeah, he was nervous but definitely turned on. "Sex--with the Slayer--"

"With Buffy," Harris said softly, and Spike nodded and started again. This was Harris' fantasy after all.

"Sex with Buffy was... hmm. Hard to say, really."

"Good?" Harris interjected, impatiently, elbowing him in the ribs.

Spike elbowed him right back and then saw his hands were clenched into fists, so he took one of them in his own hand, stroking over the knuckles gently until it opened up and he had a sweaty palm in his hand, fingers interlacing with his own. He gave a little squeeze and kept on talking. "It was bloody brilliant. What'd you expect?"

"I--I thought--I guess I figured it would--"

"Athletic, violent, humiliating," he added, interrupting Harris' stumbling over his words.

"What did she--?"

"You want details or a general impression?"

"I don't--details."

Spike grinned. Yeah, Harris was very detail-oriented. "You ever ride a horse and wonder what the horse felt like, being ridden?"

"I've never--never actually ridden a horse," Harris said, and there were layers there.

"Yeah, well, I have. Rode a dragon once as well."

"Was it good?"

"The horse, the dragon, or the Slayer?"

Harris laughed--and Spike grinned, glad the tension had broken somewhat before Harris himself broke. The dragon and Buffy--one was much the same as the other.

"Um..."

Spike chuckled at Harris' indecision, and then Harris sobered a bit. "I--Faith was--she was...."

"Rough and good and dirty and in charge--made you see stars, yeah?"

Harris nodded. The darkening of his cheeks was visible even in the dark. "I think the stars were from the lack of oxygen, actually."

Buffy had fantasized about staking him afterwards, but that would've been permanent, and she'd liked keeping her options open. Never knew when she'd need to decompress again--need another fix--need _him_ again. He reckoned it might be a Slayer thing. Slayers couldn't help the urge to destroy their lovers. Black Widows, the lot of them. He was often tempted to point that out to Buffy--figuring it might save her the trouble of trying to figure out why each date went wrong. But he suspected she wouldn't take it very well, and Harris might object to the fight that usually followed his free and friendly advice to the Slayer.

"Five by five," Harris mumbled softly, one hand rising up to his throat as he remembered. Sense memory was a powerful thing. Spike knew the story, though he suspected there were things Harris hadn't yet shared with him. Harris hadn't ever called it a rape. Things were complicated.

"Could try that," Spike suggested, just to see what Harris might say. "Could make sure you don't die--just stop breathing a little until you get the tingle."

"You are a scary, scary man." Harris turned his head toward Spike, blinking slowly, one soft, brown eye dilated almost black as he added, "Not tonight."

Not a no, then. Spike nodded, filing that away for later. He freed his hand from Harris' grip and rolled over onto his side, propping one arm under him and putting his other hand over Harris' belly, pushing his t-shirt up and sliding the flat of his palm over the warm rise of flesh there, tracing over the path of wiry hairs and then shifting up to sit beside him, tugging at his boxers until Harris lifted his hips. Spike stripped off his boxers and took hold of his prick. It twitched in Spike's hand as he gave it a squeeze before getting back to his story.

"Buffy's got small tits--but nice."

As he expected, Harris twitched again, firming up nicely. Hadn't had too much to drink then.

Spike continued, testing the waters. "Smooth skin, except for the scars, and there are a bloody lot of them. She heals up quick, but the world leaves its mark on her."

"I used to imagine t-t--"

"Touching those scars. Tracing all over them with the tips of your fingers and your tongue."

Harris inhaled and nodded, so Spike kept on talking while rubbing with the heel of his hand across the dampening head of Harris' cock, his other hand tracing over the familiar contours of Harris' body, chest and belly, shoulders and biceps and back again to the other side. "Putting your hands on her, up under her arms, your thumbs just brushing across her nipples."

Spike paused to lean in and bit down gently on one of Harris' nipples, right through the t-shirt.

Harris liked that--hard stimulation and the threat of injury.

Spike let his face change, his fangs dropping, and he nipped again, his fangs slicing through the t-shirt he'd never much liked, knowing Harris was already too far gone to complain.

The shirt made a satisfying tearing sound, revealing the wide expanse of Harris' chest--well-developed pectoral muscles that spoke of many hours lifting weights. His summer tan was fading, though his skin was still darker than Spike's hand.

Dru had smallish tits that flattened out to nothing when she lay down, especially when she wasn't feeding properly. She liked to wear corsets that pushed her breasts up and she made him unlace her, slowly, while she wriggled on the silks and satins she insisted he put on the bed. Harmony's were bigger--ripe flesh that he liked to free from her bras so he could weigh and sculpt her in his hands. He liked flattening her breasts under his body, drawing them into his mouth and suckling on them. He bit her once, on the breast, and she'd slapped him and screamed a little, but then she'd opened up her legs to him and asked him to bite the other, though it was more of a demand than a request. She was a bit of an idiot, but she was _lovely_ in bed. Her only real flaw was her insistence that they do it _only_ on the bed and nowhere else. Harmony was _above_ dusty crypt floors and complained that the grass in the cemetery was too prickly for her fair skin. Hard to believe there was a demon in her, actually, though some were like that--like sleepwalkers, they got the demon and didn't seem to ever wake up and notice they were vampires, though from what Harris had said about her, she was a bit of a vamp even before the demon. Getting a leg over at Wolfram and Hart and taking her on the desk had only happened because she was out of her mind, but it had been a taste of what was possible.

"Her breasts," Harris whispered, bringing him back on task. Buffy, not Harmony.

Neither of them.

 _Xander_.

"Nipples like strawberries," Spike told him, too distracted with the memories and the realities of Harris' body to come up with something more original.

Buffy's nipples were nice and pink once he'd worked them over with his mouth, getting them wet and hard.

Harris sighed happily, apparently not recognizing the cliche for what it was. His prick was leaking nicely now, providing enough slick that Spike could easily pump him, though he did little more than a slow wank, wanting this to last a bit.

"Wears those demi bras, lacy things with little black panties."

"She matches everything," Harris agreed.

Spike chuckled and withheld comment on Harris' own fashion sense. The boy had a pair of satin boxers with yellow smiley faces on them, and Spike had once taken a sharpie and drawn bloody red fangs on a few just to see if Harris noticed. He hadn't, as yet.

"More," Harris whispered.

"You slip her bra strap down her shoulder, exposing just the top of her nipple."

Harris moaned at that. Yeah, Spike knew what his boy liked.

Buffy had an athletic body--curvier than Dru's but sparer than Harmony's lusher figure. With Buffy, they'd hardly ever managed to make it to a proper bed. And that was purposeful on her part; A bed would've been proper--planned--romantic, unlike the Bronze or the back of that shite diner, rutting behind the dumpster amidst cardboard boxes--Spike himself just one more empty container for her suffering.

And yeah, he was just a little bitter about it, still.

Harris probably imagined something _romantic_ for Buffy--all soft lighting, seducing her with nice words and chocolates and Patsy Cline on the stereo. He'd've cleaned that pile of comic books off the bed, made it up with new sheets, lit a few candles for her as he had with Anya, and told Buffy how lovely she looked before tentatively kissing her, his big hands coming to rest on her lower back before sliding down to cup her arse.

Spike's own prick twitched a bit at the thought, which surprised him. Perhaps they shared a fantasy or two. He'd actually seen Harris and Anya on occasion. It was hard to avoid, the way the two of them went at each other. It had done little for him. But the idea of Harris and Buffy--at least in theory--was intriguing.

"The lace of her bra is rough against your tongue, but her skin's smooth, scented like--"--the stuff they fried potatoes in, ashes, grass and earth and ozone, shame--"roses, and her hair falling on your face smells like oranges and feels like silk." That last part was true, anyway.

Harris' hair was soft as well, and just as sweet smelling. Harris used whatever Spike bought and said soap worked just as well when it was cut short, though Spike had convinced him to grow it long enough to reach his collar. Spike liked to run his hands through it--liked to touch him all over.

Harris' skin was rough at the elbows, callouses on his hands, but otherwise it was smooth, warm, salty, familiar--tanned darker on his forearms than anywhere else--the dark skin and hair contrasting with his paler middle.

Spike watched, amused, as Harris began to touch himself, eyes on Spike as he did it, his hand showing Spike where to touch him and how to touch him--though they'd done this often enough Spike didn't need the lesson.

Harris' hand went right for his own chest, rubbing across the nipple roughly.

He liked Harris' pecs, which were bigger than they were when he'd first met him. The muscle now was overlaid with a bit of fat, softening the hard edge into a curve. Spike appreciated that Harris was strong enough and heavy enough now to wield an ax in a fight with some authority. He liked the way Harris' heels dug into the mattress when Spike bit down on one nipple with blunt, human teeth, and the way he shuddered and trembled when Spike bit down with his fangs just enough to draw a drop of blood. Spike had offered to pierce him, once and put a ring in, but thus far, Harris hadn't taken him up on it.

Harris liked it best when Spike focused on his chest--liked it less when Spike moved lower to focus on his middle, where he was ticklish--liked it very much when Spike took hold of his prick. Like a game of Blind Man's Buff--hot, cold, hot--though Spike was never one to go where he was told.

Hot, cold, hot--but even the cold part could be warmed up with a bit of effort. Harris might squirm a bit, but Spike knew how to make his toes curl by licking down in a straight line from Harris' throat to his prick, knew that Harris would gasp and shiver if Spike laid a path of kisses over his belly. He knew that there was a spot just an inch below his navel that made him laugh, and that the spot just below that was so sensitive he'd shiver if Spike so much as exhaled over it.

Spike gave his own prick a rough pull, spoiled for choices in where to the next step in his grand tour of Harris' body--all that hot flesh, all _his_.

He licked his lips and shifted down a bit before moving to straddle Harris' hips, liking the warmth right up against his inner thighs and bollocks and prick. Harris grinned up at him, his hand still roving over his own chest, pinching at a nipple as his hips rose up against Spike's arse.

And that was when Spike struck, leaning in too fast for mortal eyes to track and biting down into Harris' neck, pinning his shoulders down to keep him in place, though he knew Harris wouldn't struggle except as part of the game.

Harris gasped at the prick of his fangs, but he was used to it, and Spike took only a taste, not enough to sate him. He did it because he could--because Harris let him and wouldn't be filled with self-loathing afterward. That, more than the body, was the real difference between Harris and the rest. Harris _wanted_ this--him--all of it--anything he could give him, and Harris gave it all back. Harris was dinner and a show--all wrapped up nicely, layers upon layers to delve into. And the best of it was, the pressie was ever-changing. It was the way of mortals. Each time he opened him up, Harris was new, different, surprising.

Spike liked surprises.

"More," Harris whispered, and Spike swallowed one last mouthful of blood and then kissed him on the mouth, painting his lips red and then licking the blood off--again, because he could.

"Could get drunk on you, love."

"Didn't have that much," Harris protested, though he sounded a bit out of it--hazy with lust more than with alcohol, though there was enough in his blood to send a little buzz through Spike if he drank enough. He wouldn't, as that'd leave Harris with low blood pressure, a limp prick, and a headache, and Spike really wanted to ride him tonight.

And so he continued with his story, still tasting Harris at the back of his throat, and in the scent rising from him.

"You imagine her sitting pretty on your lap or... no, Buffy's on her back, yeah? And you're on your knees in front of her, on the bed. You push her skirt up her legs until it's falling at her thighs as you kneel before her. You drag her up onto your lap by her hips. You kiss her eyelids, the tip of her upturned nose, her rouged cheeks, her lips, her pointy chin, her lovely, perfect neck, her breasts--"

Harris inhaled sharply.

"Her breasts, you spend time on those, licking the sweat from between them and outlining the curved flesh with your tongue."

Spike let that image settle in Harris' mind, and he went to work on Harris' body, following that same path: kissing Harris' eyelids, liking the soft flutter of lashes against his lips, and his nose--then cheeks, rough with stubble, then down again to that mouth that he'd just kissed--that tasted like him and blood and faintly of beer and scotch. Harris kissed him back, making a "Hmmm" sound into his mouth and Spike almost lost track of his plan before he pulled away to plant a kiss on Harris' square jaw.

He bypassed the neck--too tempting--and went right to that spot at the base of his throat where a little patch of wiry, black hairs grew. He kissed down the path of his sternum and then over the curve of pectorals.

He spent time attending to nipples, rubbing them almost to the point of irritation before using his tongue to soothe them, making Harris shiver and moan. The smell of dried sweat was overlaid with new and Spike licked the salty skin of Harris' side a little--knowing he was ticklish--before kissing a path back to his middle.

"More?" Spike asked, and Harris just nodded, his expression tense. He was biting his lower lip, his eyes squeezed shut now, no longer watching Spike, and Spike provided him with more fodder for his imagination. "She's got a mole on her right here--small, hardly noticable, and she likes it when you--"

"Liked it," Harris muttered, and Spike was suddenly sitting up and looking into serious brown eyes that were a bit foggy with lust and booze.

"Yeah, liked it. Right."

"Past tense," Harris added.

And Spike nodded, getting it. Harris might like the fantasy, but he was still a little jealous, though he had no reason for it. It was over and done with. "Right. Conditional. Second-person. Hypothetical. Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Spike suspected Harris' English classes didn't cover the grammar of sexual fantasy. Wasn't as if his own did either, actually. He was making it up as he went along, which was how he approached most things. No Slayers were fucked in the making of this fantasy.

"She liked it," Harris reminded him, sounding sure of himself again.

"Right, then. She liked it, so you put your hand on her breast and slide it down, over her middle, slipping under her panties and tearing them off--"

" _Pulling_ them off, gently--"

"Tearing, pulling--panties are gone, abracadabra," Spike said, splitting the difference in the passive voice.

"Girls do magic together," Harris mumbled and Spike took a moment to marvel at the sheer scope of kinky thoughts in that head of his before continuing with his narrative.

"Right, and now she's naked, nude, all that flesh laid bare for you, and your hand's tracing over the..." Spike paused, trying to remember what words Harris liked. "Over her mons."

Harris never used that word himself, but he'd once said it sounded right when Spike had used it.

"You finger her, slipping in, and she's wet for you, yeah? Damp curls, wet and open, widening her legs and lifting her hips up so you put your hands under her arse and eat her--putting your mouth on all that wet heat, slick and sweet and there just for you."

Harris was breathing fast now, losing himself in the image. His eyes were tightly closed again, and Spike watched as he licked his lips, sense memory providing the realism to go with the words. His own memory was supplying some details--past tense and no regrets about that--and the rest was more about what he thought Harris would like than anything he'd actually done. He and the Slayer had done it rough--little tenderness there, and all of it happening far too fast for his tastes, though he'd taken it as she offered at the time because he had no leverage to argue.

"And she'd moan, yeah, and shake her head back and forth, not saying no--'cos she wants it, but it's still too much--not enough, but too much--and women are never sure which it is--"

"No means no," Harris said, ever the defender of the fairer sex.

"Yeah, know that, don't I, but this _isn't_ no--" She'd said no to the both of them, hadn't she?--"This is yes. She says, 'Yeah, do it,' and she might run hot and cold, but now she's hot for it--ripe with longing--and your head's spinning with getting it just right the way she wants it. And she'd--she's digging her heels into your back and giving herself up to you, and you use your teeth--careful, but just enough to give it an edge but not hurt, and your tongue would--it flicks over her clit again and again until she's trembling, her whole body flushed with heat and shaking against you. And then she's coming, glowing with it, thighs twitching around your ears, drawing in great big shuddering breaths as you send her off to some better place, and then you're riding the tide back down with her until she's soft and pliable again, limp and sated, and then--"

Harris sat up suddenly and grabbed at him, pulling him down on top of Harris, crushed their mouths together in a kiss as Harris lined up their pricks, knocking aside Spike's hand so that he could use his own larger one to tug and pull at them, sweat and precum easing the way, familiarity doing the rest. It was quick, then, both of them too far gone to make it last. Harris was almost there already and Spike was not far behind him, needing only a bit of friction to bring him off.

Talking wasn't what moved him, though the words were a bit of fun. It was watching Harris react to the words that did him in--just listening to the rise of his heartbeat as he spoke, feeling the stirring and hardening of his prick as Spike fed him the words he needed to hear. What made it delicious was knowing that Buffy herself, sitting on top of Harris, wasn't what Harris needed or wanted. Buffy was insubstantial, just a word, an image, a ghost, but Spike was _real_ \--Harris made him real.

And Harris was saying _his_ name--shouting it as he came--

"Spike--"

\--coming and moaning his name as he collapsed with his full weight over him, hot and sweaty and--

"Earth to Vampire. Spike, Giles says the mini-Apocalypse is set to go off in about an hour, which gives us just enough time to--"

"What?" Spike blinked at Harris, coming back to the moment just in time to realize he'd missed the meeting entirely, including the strategizing he'd meant to dominate in order to keep Harris from involving himself in anything likely to risk life and limb. Rupert's plans were the same as they always were--putting the Slayerettes in harm's way with no regard for the fact that Harris was different from the rest.

And now, having missed that, he had no idea what was on for the night.

But Harris was standing close beside him, next to the fireplace and whispering at him about some big energy burst and a fountain and a Granta demon, and as much as he should be worried, because Harris had said something about fighting the Granta, all Spike could think about was the weight of Harris' hand casually resting on his shoulder and how much he'd like to take Harris and fuck him right on Buffy's floor, and sod the lot of them. Let them see it. Let the world end without them.

"Down boy," Harris chuckled.

And Spike realized he'd let his fangs go and was growling.

Harris was glancing down at his jeans and stroking the back of his hand over the bulge there, making Spike rock back on his heels and moan.

"Spike, not here, okay?"

Spike breathed enough to laugh. "You're _touching_ me here."

"I'm... okay, yeah, I am, but only because you did it first."

"Very mature."

Harris grinned and shook his head. "Okay, so how about we both back off until after we destroy Cary Grant."

"Who?"

"That's what Buffy calls the--nevermind. Where _were_ you, anyway. I thought you wanted in on the action."

"Oh, I was in on it." Spike looked over to where Buffy was leaning over the table, confabbing with Willow, her skirt hiking up in the back and revealing a long, shapely leg and well-defined calf.

"What?"

"You, me, and the Slayer make three," Spike said, picturing it.

"Spike, Christ, she's _right here_."

"So?"

"So it was wrong to--to use her like that."

Spike looked at Harris and rolled his eyes. "Right. You started it, asking what it was like."

"You didn't have to answer."

"Oh, I _didn't, did I?_ "

"Shouldn't have," Harris clarified. "You're not supposed to kiss and tell."

Spike frowned. "Bollocks." He leaned in and brushed his mouth against Harris' mouth, though at the last second Harris turned his head and the kiss landed on his cheek instead.

Spike took hold of his chin, thinking to hold him in place for another try, but Harris pulled away from him to look over at the table where the Scoobies were still gathered around, in deep conversation and seeming to have no interest in what was happening across the room.

"Not even looking, are they?" Spike pointed out, and Harris seemed to relax a bit, so Spike put a hand around the back of his neck and drew him in for a proper kiss that promised to get improper right quick, suggesting that, for all of Harris' protests, he was turned on.

But just when it was getting interesting, Spike heard Rupert clear his throat and say, "Well, yes, it does appear that way. Spike, could you--if you might disengage from your, er, consultation with Xander for just a moment, we--that is to say I--would appreciate a second opinion." And then, sotto voce, "like bloody animals in heat."

Harris pulled away from him with a whispered, "Fuck," though he hadn't heard the last bit. Harris was breathing hard and at some point, he'd moved in close so that they were rutting together, leaned up against the hearth.

Spike looked over at Rupert, who had some colour on his cheeks, and he made a point of lingering long enough to rub the back of his hand over Harris' zipper, and then he left him standing beside the hearth with a promise of, "Later."

Harris turned toward the mantle and Spike saw him adjust himself and take a deep, shuddering breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [spring_with_xan](http://spring-with-xan.livejournal.com/profile).


End file.
